PhotoS of the Week: MACAU SPITFIRE REPLICA BUILT BY RUSSELL PIERCE AND HIS SON

I have featured a couple of customer project cars recently, and I received a very interesting email with photos from Russell Pierce in Georgia. Russell and his son built a beautiful replica of the “Macau” Spitfire with advice from Kas Kastner and constant help from Ronnie Babbitt, a well-known Triumph enthusiast from the same state. Russell tells the story first-hand in his email, and I am going to quote him rather than diluting the story by putting it into my own words. You can see photos of the donor car and the finished project by clicking on this link. Here is Russell Pierce’s story of the project...

Back in 2012, my dear friend, Ronnie Babbitt invited my son and I to Road Atlanta for the event known as the Mitty. Having no prior knowledge of this, we were somewhat overwhelmed by it all. This particular year, Triumph happened to be the marque car for the event, and Kas Kastner was the grand marshal. Ronnie introduced my son (who wanted to study auto design) to Kas. He was very kind and challenged my son to build a car if he really was interested in knowing how to design one. Challenge accepted—we began to study the history of Kas’s Triumph racing career and the cars he had. What stood out to us was this little Spitfire with cool sloping nose and rear head faring that resembled an early Jag race car. Having no idea this car, known as “the Macau.” had such a racing history, I mentioned it to Ronnie, and he actually had photos he had taken a few years earlier.

We located a donor car on a north GA mountain trail and brought it home. We contacted Kas about the build who was gracious enough to provide us with constant details, photos, and even information on other owners beyond himself who supplied us with valuable pictures for the build. Ronnie stuck with us throughout the build.

When word got out about this car, Joe Alexander asked if we would bring it to the next Kastner Cup in Summit Point, West Virginia. He also had Shawn Frank with “Spitfire & GT6 Magazine” publish progressive articles as we were building the car towards the unveil date. Mark Field from Jigsaw Racing was kind enough to create the LeMans headlamp assemblies we needed. We even had John Clancy on hand to capture the unveil with Kas and to interview him about the original. What a great adventure.